My library serves approximately 975 high school students grades 9-12, 45 teachers, and 20 other non-teacher faculty and support staff. My school is a historically black high school in our district rich with decades of local history and community member legacies. It is presently a Title 1 public magnet school, 1:1 with technology where every learner is provided with a Dell laptop for academic purposes, with 100% of its student body on free lunch and is composed of students from all over the school district. We are a culturally diverse school with many races and ethnicities represented and over 30 languages/dialects spoken across our student body.

Our school is considered a signature school and college preparatory school. The school is an International Baccalaureate (IB) world school that offers the Diploma Programme (DP) for grades 11-12 with a Full Diploma course of study in Math, Science, Social Studies, ELA, Language, Art, Music, and Theory, a certificate student pathway for students to take individual DP courses in most subjects, Advanced Placement courses in core content areas, and dual-enrollment courses in Math and Psychology.

As the school librarian, I am tasked with providing and maintaining a relevant, high-quality, and high-interest collection to meet the needs of our largely diverse learner population and complex program of studies offered. I am currently able to provide this through our ever-evolving collection of physical and digital materials, a cooperative relationship with our public library system to expand our learners’ access to resources and materials, and a flexible schedule and space that simultaneously accommodates large groups, small groups, and individual learners.

Our library space and collection is used by not only our student learners, but our teachers, staff, and our student families as well. While we are a 1:1 school for technology and are current and modern in a lot of ways, we still have many library users that prefer physical books over ebooks and audiobooks for personal, academic, and professional use. We also have students and staff that do not have reliable access to technology outside of their school day, therefore, providing high-quality, high-interest, and current physical books and resources remains a top priority for our program. Our library maintains a large and diverse collection of physical books from a variety of genres and topics such as: fantasy fiction, YA, memoirs, historical fiction, manga, graphic novels, self-improvement, entrepreneurship for teens, cookbooks, and adolescent literature for those with younger siblings. Our library also includes works published in other languages, including: Spanish, French, Latin, and Chinese to support our language courses and our ELL students and staff.

Our school library is able to provide our students access to hundreds of our own titles in ebook format through Mackin, one of our two primary book vendors. Through our district relationship with our local public library system, students and staff are also able to access over 100,000 ebooks and audiobooks from the public library with Overdrive. In addition to ebooks and audiobooks for personal, professional, and academic use, our students and staff can also access additional digital resources and databases provided through the public library to its patrons and community partners. Our school library also pays for additional database access for students and staff to have access to JSTOR and Proquest to support course and curriculum research needs.

Providing access to digital resources and databases in addition to traditional physical materials is important because our school is both an IB world school and college preparatory school. Our students learn through their individual classes and in frequent co-taught library lessons how to access and use both physical and digital resources for research purposes and their personal interests.

Our school library’s physical space was created to be flexible and to maximize access to the library collection and programming by large groups, small groups, and individuals simultaneously. Our bookshelves are three feet tall and on wheels, providing a clean and clear view of the entire library and its patrons at all times. There are couches, booths, high top tables and chairs, ottomans, and traditional individual desks with separate chairs that can be moved and configured into tables, circles, and more to meet the needs of the users. The library also has two conference rooms that students can use for quiet, individual space, small groups for studying, assessments, and meetings. Finally, the library has its very own cafe that is used before, during, and after school by students and staff to eat, socialize, read, and study.

I anticipate the continued growth and evolution of library collections toward a balance between digital and physical materials. Even having grown up entirely in the digital age, my students still prefer to read from a physical book or material over a digital or audio format. I also anticipate our library evolving further to support social-emotional education, digital literacy, and ethical use and access of information. Though our society can access information much quicker and easier than in the past, there is still a great need to provide an environment that supports information literacy and an ethical use of information and information technologies.